


The Cat's Burglar

by Stripesicles222



Series: RWBY Tales [16]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Humor, Mystery(?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25629820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stripesicles222/pseuds/Stripesicles222
Summary: Requested by KHARAKI TAKAN of fanfiction.netAlso, the V7 soundtrack finally dropped, and it's made a great background for editing.
Series: RWBY Tales [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1002489
Kudos: 2





	The Cat's Burglar

"Hey Ilia, have you seen my bracelet?" A young Blake asked her friend. "I can't seem to find it."

The chameleon girl glanced up from her scroll and shook her head.

"Nope, haven't seen it," she said. "Have you looked in the drawer?"

Blake sighed and headed towards the desk once again.

"I suppose it won't hurt to check again," she decided. "You know, this is the fourth thing of mine to disappear this week alone, and it's only Tuesday."

"Do…do you think someone is stealing your stuff?" Ilia asked. "Maybe you've got a secret admirer!"

Blake sighed in resignation and stepped back from the desk, slamming the drawer in the process. Over the past few months, a lot of her stuff had gone missing. She was convinced someone was taking it, but had no way to prove it.

"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffed. "Besides, they'd have to be pretty stealthy to get past the two of us."

Ilia nodded in agreement.

"It's like there's another ninja among us," she exclaimed. "Except no one's a better ninja than you are!"

Blake rolled her eyes at the praise.

"Whatever," she chuckled. "Come on, Adam's waiting."

\------

Years later, when Blake turned her back on the White Fang, her friend was left feeling rejected and abandoned. In the following months, the Fang continued to grow ever more violent, and Ilia became caught up in the sway.

When they did finally meet up again, it wasn't on friendly terms, as Blake was seen as a traitor to Faunus-kind.

After trying to kill each other, Blake finally convinced Ilia to leave the Fang as well, liberating her from the bondage of lies and propaganda.

Together they had led a band of Faunus to Mistral in an effort to start reversing the wrongdoings of the White Fang. There, they met up with Blake's old team from Beacon.

After almost a year apart, the entirety of Team RWBY was finally back together again. The separation had been hard on each of them, but that was now a thing of the past.

Blake had sent Ilia and Sun off with the other Faunus they had brought so she might have a chance to just talk with her team.

The four girls were sitting together in the living room of their temporary home, enjoying the short reprieve before they had to set out for Atlas.

They shared their tales of trials and loss as they got caught up to speed with all that had transpired.

Eventually, the conversation drifted to their friends, new and old, who had been corralled into this mess.

"So Sun followed you all the way to Menagerie, and you didn't even notice until he used you as a trampoline?" Ruby said in awe. "He must be a ninja or something!" she breathed.

Weiss scoffed.

"Don't be ridiculous," she chided. "That idiot could never be sneaky enough to pull that off. My guess is Blake was just too preoccupied with her thoughts to notice him."

Yang appeared to be in deep thought before verbalizing her agreement with the heiress.

"Good point," she said. "Besides, no one is a better ninja than Blake. Except maybe Ren, or that Chameleon girl, what was her name again? Ilia?"

Ruby nodded.

"Her camouflaging ability must help, and if she was friends with Blake, she must have learned a thing or two about stealth," she commented. "I'd bet you Ilia could be just as sneaky, if not more so, than Blake."

Blake froze, memories from years before resurfacing.

No one could have snuck past her and Ilia and taken her things from under their noses. It just wasn't possible.  
That would have to mean…

"I don't believe it," she breathed.

"Afraid you'll have to live in her shadow?" Yang quipped, shaking Blake out of her musing.

"What? No," the Faunus said. "I just, finally solved a mystery I've been trying to figure out since I was younger."

She leveled a stern glare at the blonde.

"Also, that was probably your worst attempt at a pun ever. My semblance? Really?"

Yang shrugged, but did nothing to wipe the grin off her face.

Blake let out a small chuckle.

"It's rather obvious now that I look back," she said wistfully. "It was right in front of me the whole time! How could I have been so clueless?"

Her teammates shared a glance as she devolved into an uncharacteristic fit of giggles and self-deprecation.

"So what eternal mystery did you just solve?" Weiss asked, both curious and concerned.

The Faunus let out a final wry laugh and turned her attention back to her friends.

"When I was still part of the Fang, my things were always disappearing. At first, I thought I was losing my mind and misplacing things, but that just wasn't me," she explained. "Someone must have been stealing my things, but who could have possibly gotten past Ilia and me? We were the Fang's stealthiest members; no one could have taken it without either of us knowing."

"So…who was it?" Ruby asked.

"That's what I was trying to figure out," Blake said. "I spent years reading poorly written novels in order to understand the minds of other ninjas, and it never resulted in any ideas."

Yang laughed.

"Is that why you read that Ninjas of Love stuff?"

Blake blanched.

"You knew about that? I thought my research was secret!"

"We all knew. You weren't as secretive about that as you thought," Weiss told her. "I'm just glad you realize it was a terrible excuse for literature."

Blake sat in shock and shame for a few moments before continuing her story.

"Anyway, I spent years trying to figure out who it was, and it was all for naught," she said. "But then Ruby said something similar to what Ilia had said all those years ago: she's the only person who ever came close to being as stealthy as I was."

It was quiet for a moment as they tried to process her words.

"So what's your point?" Weiss asked.

"My point is that the thief had the perfect alibi, and I fell for it," Blake said. "It was the one I trusted who betrayed my trust."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Ruby asked, still very lost.

Blake smiled as she stood up.

"I'm going to make a certain someone show me their true colors," she said with a smirk.

Her teammates watched flabbergasted as left the room.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that it finally clicked.

"It was Ilia," Weiss declared. "All along, it was her friend, the one she would never have expected."

Ruby and Yang face palmed simultaneously.

"So what now?" Ruby asked.

"Well, we should probably make sure they don't kill each other," Weiss said. "After all, they did just make up from their last disagreement."

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by KHARAKI TAKAN of fanfiction.net
> 
> Also, the V7 soundtrack finally dropped, and it's made a great background for editing.


End file.
